Don’t underestimate the baby
I had a dream I’d just narrowly escaped a medium-sized shark, when some baby, one that was axiomatically important to me in the dream, toddled out gleefully into the water to play with it. I squeezed my eyes shut against the blood spatter, but nothing happened. I cracked them open to see the baby playing in the water right near the shark. The shark stayed close but didn’t attack. A smart shark then. It wouldn’t settle for simply eating the baby. It was waiting for me to try to save it so that it could eat me instead.
Then it would eat the baby.
Just what I would have done.
I frantically tried to remember all the negotiation tactics I learned in the first chapter of each of Chris Voss’s books, “I was an FBI negotiator and so can you,” and “One weird trick for negotiating with sharks and so can you.” All I remembered was that to built rapport I had to echo the last few words of everything the hostage taker said. It didn’t seem particularly applicable. I up-regulated my panic by 15%, risking acute mental hernia. “Pacing and leading,” another phrase from my 3 minutes with “learn to manipulate others in 10 minutes,” bubbled up from the well of useful but incomplete memories.
I was still thinking about how to leverage those aborted learnings in the current situation when the baby stabbed the shark in the face with a screwdriver. Huh, this had taken a turn for the unexpected. Did babies come with screwdrivers? I couldn’t remember.
The shark was as baffled as I was. The baby stood absolutely zero chance of killing it, it had just barely drawn blood, but it had definitely challenged the shark’s bluff for all to see. I don’t have to tell you that sharks are intensely reputational creatures. If it didn’t retort with a pithy burn soon, it’d have to get a new Twitter handle.
At the same time, I was still the juicier prize, having been feeding myself too well for just this occasion.
What I couldn’t figure out now was the baby’s plan. I took a deep breath and tried to remember what my plan was when I was a baby, but all that surfaced was the story my parents told me of my first time at the beach, where they’d carelessly let one of my toys get away and drift farther and farther into the open sea. I’d stood there on the sand shrieking out my horror as I tracked it out towards the horizon, and refused to dip a toe into the water. They say that the echoes of my screams can still be heard there on the windy days, and many a horny college student has brought their date there after the “Misattribution of Arousal” lecture in Psych 101.
Wait a second. Why would my parents tell me that horrible story if I didn’t remember it myself?
Just as I had gotten lost in my memories, the baby had forgotten what it was doing for a minute after that first stab. But just as the shark was getting complacent, the baby spotted the screwdriver in its hand and resumed its train of thought, giving a little “acha!” and poking another shallow hole in the shark’s cheek, an inch to the right of the first one. Who taught this baby how to use a screwdriver? Clearly someone who’d only read the first chapter of the book.
The shark was getting antsy, I could tell. I don’t know much about sharks, but its tail was looking more menacing than taunting now. Definitely not playful wagging, the bezier curves are nothing alike. Two small streaks of blood ran down its face, giving it a business-like air. I made a mental note to get a similar looking tattoo if I had time later. I was on a business trip myself. But meanwhile, sensing I had to respond before the shark got reckless and settled for the baby, I approached the water slowly with my palms raised. I hoped desperately that my forward momentum would trigger some inspiration, and that sharks were taught human hand signals at an early age. As I got closer, the shark became more and more still, like it was saving its energy for a nice pounce, or trying to blend in with the sand so that I couldn’t see it. The latter wasn’t working at all, but it wasn’t quite enough to cheer me up.
I tried to signal the baby to throw me the screwdriver. “Throw me the screwdriver!” I yelled. There was no way I was going to fight the shark barehanded. I was already preparing my excuses for failure. “The baby was hogging the screwdriver, and it would have been suicide to engage without it.” I’d recently read a whole book about excuses doctors make to convince themselves they did nothing wrong. The one book I’d finished. But the baby proved precocious because it understood my meaning right away. It ratcheted its arm back, somewhat awkwardly, then spun around like a pitcher as it threw the screwdriver…right into the ocean, plopping itself on its bottom in the process. Damn it!
If sharks could laugh, now would have been the time to prove it. I was momentarily distracted so if anyone has a video, please share, marine biologists struggle to recreate these scenarios in the lab. I was distracted because there was a new shadow in the water. It was moving towards us quickly. It was a torpedo. The FBI had gotten tired of my weak negotiation tactics and they were eager to test whether nuclear devices worked on sharks. I grokked this all in a blinding epiphany. It knocked the last crumbs of sense and sensibility from my brain and I bolted in to grab the baby, wondering how long it would hurt getting torn apart, start to finish, by a shark versus by a nuclear blast.
As I approached the speed of light, time did something funky, and the next thing I knew I was back on my ass in the sand, baby clutched to my chest. The water ten feet away was black with blood, and I rushed to inspect myself for damage. Two arms, two legs and I still couldn’t play the violin. I spun the baby around. It was whole as well, and had somehow recovered the screwdriver in the process, which it now held in a death grip in one fat little fist. We were both unharmed. Oh my God, how? Was the FBI just spear-fishing after all? Was the shark a vegetarian?
My vision swam as I stared back into the water where something was thrashing around violently. The medium-sized shark was being torn to pieces by a large shark. Ah…so that was the baby’s plan. It all made sense now. I was never trusting another epiphany again. And what was the medium-sized shark thinking in the first place? I scrambled to my feet and ran away before an extra large one appeared to finish building the nesting dolls of gore.
What a close call. I still couldn’t believe I’d come out unscathed. Unless I had somehow earned the responsibility of raising the baby now. That would suck. Imagine if every time you won Father of the Year (like I’d just done), you were handed a new baby.
“Acha!” I heard from somewhere far away. I looked down to see a screwdriver sticking out of my xiphoid process. The baby looked up at me like it deserved ice cream. I woke up.
Just a dream. Again. A feeling of relief that I will never habituate to flooded my veins like heroin. Ahem, like heroin does, I imagine. Still partially possessed by the raw violence of the experience, I checked myself, just in case. Two arms, two legs, and I still couldn’t play the violin. And no baby. Megaphew.
